Crawl Away: Chapter 7

  Men Should do with their hopes as they do

  with the tame fowl, cut their wings that

  they may not fly over the wall.

                                        [Lord Halifax: Maxims]

   Aoshi's remains were cremated and scattered into the Kyoto Bay on a rather nice day in mid-August.  I watched the funeral from a distance with Okita.  An interesting blend of Shinto and Christian theme to the lengthy ceremony.  There were more people at the funeral than we had anticipated.  Most of them were Kanryu's former associates and employees.  Even the new successor of the Takeda estate was there--probably making sure Aoshi's really dead.  I did not see Von Erich.  I didn't expect to.

    Kiros Takeda's name was Simon McPike, one of many bastard children Takeda Kanryu had spawned outside Japan.  There's little information on McPike except that he was half Irish and his mother had filed several paternity suit unsuccessfully for several years.  They were not alone in their pursuit to cross into the Takeda's pearly gates when the news of Aoshi's death was released.  There were three from United States, two from Canada and at least ten from Western Europe.  Okita and I had a running bet that at least ten more will creep out of the woodwork from somewhere on the planet before the year ends.  Despite Takeda's taste for young boys, he had been busy with the ladies as well. 

     McPike and his mother moved in a week after Aoshi's death was made official and released to press.  McPike surrendered his citizenship and changed his name to expedite the paperwork.  Dear Kiros knew he had competition and he should be grateful for his financially aggressive mother pushed the paperwork through.  

    Okita finished taking his pictures of the attendees and nudged me to say he had what he came for.  

    "We can stay here a little longer," he said when I started to walk toward our car. 

    "No,  I'd like to leave.  I don't like Kyoto."

    It was hours into the ride when he finally spoke.

    "Did you find closure?"

    I contemplated on whether to answer him or pretend I was asleep.  Something inside me compelled me to speak and I was a little surprised at the reply myself.

    "No."

    "You've said that if he died, your badge would feel meaningless," Okita continued.  "Is it?"

    "No," I said and reached into my pocket for my cigarettes.  "Not yet."

    I rolled the window down by a few inches then lit the cigarette.  He gave me an annoyed look when I discarded the lit match through the opened window.

    "I assume you mean you plan on tracking his killer."

    "I suppose."

    "It would look very questionable for a department director to handle an investigation.  Your relationship with him might..."  He paused to search for the appropriate word.  "...mar your reputation.  You would be under extreme scrutiny."

    "I don't really care.  I've not held my position long enough to have a reputation to smear.  I'm not very ambitious, Okita-san.  I don't really care all that much what the overhead thinks of me."

    "Even if it will cost you your career?" He said and looked over to me.  I rarely saw him without a smile and it didn't suit him to look so serious.  "I mean, you are opening up your own can of worms. "

    I flicked the cigarette ashes through the window opening then rubbed out the half-smoked cigarette into the ash tray.  

    "The only thing they'll find in the said can would be my sexual history with Aoshi.  Makes for fascinating reading but hardly anything anyone can use to destroy a career over."

    I lowered the window even more to ventilate the stale, smoky air.  Hot, humid air drifted in instead.  Okita cursed and cranked up the air conditioning.

    "Do you have a suspect?" I said.  I didn't want to talk about me or my investment in the murder case.  

    He shrugged and gestured for me to roll up my window.  I did. 

    "Naturally, Kiros' on top of the list...since he's the only name we can get now.  But I don't think he did it.  He seemed so..."

    "Ignorant?" I finished for him.

    He tilted his head slightly and thought for a moment.

    "I guess.  He didn't seem to be very interested in Kanryu's business.  In fact, rumor has it that he's deathly afraid of the Yakuza moving in and had already started to give up some of the gray areas."

    Kanryu ran half of his business in the "gray area".  Or rather, the undisputed areas where both Kanryu and Yakuza's shops overlapped and neither held real control over the territory.  For as long as I could remember, the "gray area" had been used as a marker on Kanryu's standing against the Yakuza.  The more territories Kanryu acquired in there, the stronger he had become.  If there's anything I would give Kanryu credit for, it was his ability to pin down as much terrain as he did in a very hostile territory.  It took a lot of strategic planning and audacity--traits Kiros did not exude much of from my initial impression of him.   

    "Daddy would have been proud," I said.  "Eventually Kiros will find himself dead when the Yakuza realize the kid's born without a spine.  He probably faints at the sight of blood."

    "Then someone who wanted him to be the heir ordered the murder..."  Okita said.  

    "I know it looked obvious, but the profile of the murder didn't fit."

    "Because Aoshi was tortured before he was killed?"

    "And the timing didn't make sense.  Some of the wounds formed scabs, that confirmed the reported time of death.  Whomever started to carve on Aoshi, started only three days after Kanryu died.  The news of Kanryu's death was released a week after the shooting, or five days after Aoshi's ordeal begun.  The only persons who knew about Kanryu's death were on the inside."

    "Unless McPike had someone already planted on the inside," Okita said.  "He moved in quickly.  I'd say he moved in on the same day Kanryu died."

    "Then why hadn't he moved in earlier? There's no one but Von Erich and myself that knew Kanryu might be dead that day."

    "Maybe Von Erich was the person on the inside," he said.  "He's certainly in the perfect position for it.  He's close to Aoshi and at the time when Aoshi could not physically defend himself.  If he's as good as you say he was, and as loyal to Aoshi as you say he was--then no one else could have taken Aoshi."

    "No," I said.  "I know he could not have done that to Aoshi.  I will bet my life on it.  It also didn't make sense for him to wait until that precarious moment to kill Aoshi.  All he had to do was wait for Kanryu to ship Aoshi off, then kill Kanryu to achieve the same results.  However, he is the part of the equation that I don't understand."

    "You said he loved Aoshi.  Maybe this has nothing to do with politics and just a matter of Aoshi rejecting Von Erich and Von Erich reacted rather badly to it."

    "There's nothing for Aoshi to reject.  I am kind of certain Von Erich knew where he stood in Aoshi's life.  He's about as self-sacrificing and devoted as they come.  I want to say besotted, but in a professional way."

    "The wounds on Aoshi were very personalized."

    He meant the tattoo on Aoshi's back being stripped.  For a long time, that detail troubled me also.  It felt as if the person who killed Aoshi had gone to great length to leave me a message.  Not many people knew Aoshi had a second tattoo nor knew the reason why he had earned it.

    "Why did you think they buried him then go through the trouble to unearth him and throw him into a lake that didn't flow out to the ocean?" 

    "His body needs to be discovered," I said.  "If Aoshi's only declared missing, the will's still in effect.  Aoshi's body needs to be found and identified.  I am assuming whomever killed and buried him, realized the body would probably be severely deteriorated  by the summer heat.  By Fall, there's probably nothing to recognize the body by."

    "Don't you feel strange that it was you that ID'ed him? I mean, none of the Kanryu's people even bothered to file a missing person's report.  Aoshi was gone for at least two months."

    "I can't even begin to guess why nothing was filed.  With the legal button-down, it looked like no one wanted the cops to know or to look for Aoshi.  Maybe they just didn't want the cops to get involved in anything that would require our presence in their home.  The way Aoshi was killed--that was personalized.  For me.  This bastard must've known the body will turn up and I would recognize that tattoo.  It disturbed me that the tattoo in the back was taken off.  There was no need for it."

    "Perhaps this person's telling you something?"

    I shrugged.  "I couldn't tell you what it could be.  I slept with him, and that was the extent of our relationship."

    "The killer must have known about this relationship, to predict you would be the one to identify the body."   

    "Then why did he strip off the first tattoo and not the second one? I would have been able to recognize the tattoo on the back as well."

    Okita sighed and shook his head.

    "Of course, all of it could mean nothing.  The manner of Aoshi's death's a theatrical diversion, so to speak.  Yakuza could be behind this after all and getting a puppet in there was part of the master plan.  The new leader has the feet of clay."

    "That fits one side of the puzzle," I said.  "Gut instinct says that can't be it.  Did you talk to the lawyer who handled the will yet?"

    "Yes, but the bugger won't say anything, of course.  He only confirmed Kiros' name as the primary recipient for the fortune, for now.  He said there were others pending but he won't tell me who they were or how many there were."

    "Maybe we can rattle him for names on the basis that any one of those pending names are suspects."

    He looked over to me and grinned. 

    "I tried that," he said.  "He wants names from us first, and if any of the names coincide, he'd confirm it.  Counsel-client confidentiality."

   "How about if we dangle him out of his office window by his ankles until he talks?"

   "The chief might get angry."

   "That man never had a sense of humor."

   He nodded.   "Anyway, I think we have a better chance pinning down Kiros.  With some paper shuffling from your department, I'm sure we can come up with a reasonable cause for a visit."

   "Already have the paperwork," I said.  "We see him on Tuesday."

    After meeting Kiros personally, I found myself liking him even less.  Although he did not appear to have much savvy when it comes to running the family business, there's a hidden menace about him that was even more unpredictable.  His version of malice was instinctive--the kind that came with money and power and achieving it or holding it meant more than life itself.  

    Kiros looked a lot like his father, in spite of his Irish blood.  According to the files he was 26, 4 years older than Aoshi--he looked like he was in his mid-thirties.  His Japanese was surprisingly proficient.  His mother must have groomed him for Kanryu's place from birth.  

    Okita and I were led to one of the rooms at the west wing of the mansion by a servant.  The study was bigger than my apartment and standing in middle of the wall to wall Persian rug made me grumpy.  Book shelves with glass doors lined up against the far side of the wall.  The other half of the wall was decked out with European swords encased in glass boxes.  I walked up to the bookcase and read the names off the spines of the books with leather book covers.

    "Now we know why Kanryu's a pain in the ass," I said.  "Machiavelli."

    Okita grinned and took a seat by the window.

    "What do you think of Kiros' mother?" He asked.

    "She looks kind of mean," I said. 

    "I mean, do you think she's capable of putting the hit on Aoshi?"

   "Of course," I said and walked to the wall with the swords.  "She's more likely than Kiros to have done it.  She petitioned for Kanryu to legally acknowledge Kiros as his son twelve times over 26 years."

    "So why are we not questioning her instead?"

    "Because she looks kind of mean."

    Okita opened his mouth to say something when the door opened and Kiros came in.  Neither Okita or I jumped to attention and saluted him and it might have annoyed him, by the peculiar looks he gave us.  We waited for his lawyers to follow him into the room but no one else came in and he closed the door.

    "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said and walked toward the arm chairs by the window.  He took the seat next to Okita and I sat down on the remaining chair that faced both of them.  I suspect Kiros didn't like me very much.

    "Will your legal counsels be joining us?" Okita said in his usual polite, soft voice.  

    "No," Kiros said and sank a little bit into the chair to make himself more comfortable.  "I have nothing to hide."

    Okita and I smiled.  Kiros became open game.

    "I know you think I killed him," he said.  "But I didn't.  I don't have much stomach for father's...methods of dealing with people."

    "Maybe so. You are the only one reaping the benefits of his death."

    He shrugged and leaned back.

    "His death only expedited the proper process.  I'll be damned if I lose my inheritance to a whore."

    "The said whore was also legally adopted and specifically named in the will," I said. 

    He grinned and said nothing.  A few moments of uncomfortable silence floated through and already I felt we won't be getting much information from Kiros.  

    "I heard you knew him in the Biblical sense," he said.  "Is that why this case interest you?"

    "Yes, he's that good."

    Okita cleared his throat and cut in.  "What can you tell us about Aoshi?"

    "I know as much as you do," he said then looked over to me.  "Well, not as much as you do.  I met him once when I was 18, at one of father's parties in Copenhagen.  Not very sociable. He kept to himself and to that big German bodyguard--"

    "Von Erich?" Okita offered the name when Kiros couldn't came up with it.

    "Sounds about right.  All I know was, Aoshi became father's favorite son because they were screwing.  We didn't have a chance with the paternity suit while father's still alive.  Then when you killed him, it saved all of us a lot of time."

    "Who's we?"

    "Myself and other siblings father failed to take care of," he said.  "We've already prepared a class action suit to contest the will as soon as father died."

    "He did die, so why are you the only one here?"

    "Things changed.  Aoshi went missing then turned up dead.  So now, it's a matter of which one of us that crossed the finish line first. "

    "Theoretically, everyone heard the news of Aoshi's death on the same day.  Why did your paperwork turn up in Ishimaru's desk even before Kanryu's death was made official?"

    "I don't know and personally, I don't really care all that much about the legal crap that went into this.  All I care about is I got here.  I kind of feel bad Aoshi died.  He was good looking and it's horrible to see that nice piece of ass being wasted like that but--" He shrugged.

    "Your mother dealt with the legal crap?" I asked.  He was quiet for a few seconds then a slight dust of crimson came across his face.

    "Don't even try to imply my mother had anything to do with this."

    "I'm not implying anything.  I asked a sincere question."

    "And I know why you asked it," he said and stood up.  "You want me to say my mother had him murdered."

    "Kiros," Okita said gently.  "We are only asking who filed the paperwork on your behalf.  We'd like to know how that person anticipated the news of Kanryu or Aoshi's death.  It's a routine for us, to cover all avenues of the case.  That means asking questions to the people who were not suspects at all."

    He glared at Okita and appeared to calm down a little. Then he looked at me.

    "I have nothing more to say," he finally said and started to walk toward the door.  "One of the servants will see you out."

    Then he left. 

    "Could that have been a semi-confession that he had just given us?" Okita said.

    I stood up and straightened my jacket and tie.

    "Maybe.  We've got a lot of work to do, to tie Miss McPike to this case."

    "You still don't think neither McPike has anything to do with this." 

    "Sometimes things isn't what they seem," I said.

    The day after the uneventful interview with Kiros, one of the former staff from Kanryu's household came to see me at my office.  I remember seeing a picture of him from the surveillance and vaguely, I think he was one of the very few servants who had served under Kanryu's father as well.  He was well into his late sixties, well groomed and over flowing with paternal aura.  Everyone's grandfather.

    "You are?" I said as I extended my hand out to the old man.  He took my hand and gave me a quick handshake then shoved his hand back into his pocket.

    "Toshiro Nakamura," he said.   

    I nodded and asked him to sit down.  He sat down in one of the three chairs arranged in a semi-circle in front of my desk.  I returned to my own seat.

    "I was one of the few people who helped raise Aoshi," he said.

    It was hard to veil how pleased I was to have a potential break in Aoshi's case.

    "I'm not too certain what questions to ask," I said.  "I assume you had come with something in mind to tell me.  Can we start there?"

    He looked down at his lap and for awhile, he said nothing.  

    "I was there that night when Aoshi was taken," he said.  "The day Master died."

    "Who took him?"

    He looked up at me and his eyes were moist and he was on the brink of tears.

    "Ian called McPike and told them that the job's done," he said softly.  "I heard it.  He said to wire the money into his Swiss account first before he finish the job."

    My stomach did a somersault and I found myself stunned by the old man's words.  A single tear trickled out of his right eye.  Quickly, he wiped at it with his shirt sleeve and looked back down at his hands again.

    "Then Ian said to "go ahead and put the paperwork in." He will make sure Aoshi turns up in about a month to make it official.  I didn't know what he meant.  If I did, I would have killed Ian right then."

    "Did he mention who he was speaking with by name?"

    He shook his head.

    "How do you know if that was McPike?"

    He shifted in his seat and fished out a crumbled piece of paper from his pocket.  He put it on my desk and waited for me to unfurl the worn paper.  It was a phone bill.  I frowned when I spotted a long phone number listed as being placed from the Kanryu residence around midnight of the day of the shooting.  

    "That's Ireland's country code," Nakamura said. 

    "I see," I said. "Ian came across to me quite incapable of hurting Aoshi, although I don't really know him.  Aoshi was about to be sent away by Kanryu.  He didn't have to die."

    "Kanryu-sama planned on a controlled sell," he said after gathering his bearing.  "Aoshi would be sold but Kanryu-sama only wanted Aoshi to learn his lesson.  He would be with his new master for a few weeks, then Kanryu-sama would come and collect him again.  After Aoshi's...better."

    "So being sent to the slaughterhouse was a ploy to scare Aoshi into being a good boy?"

    He shrugged then nodded.

    "How many people knew?"

    "I thought it was only me.  Sometimes Kanryu-sama would tell me these things.  He trusted me."  He let out a deep breath.  "Kanryu-sama hurt Aoshi often, but Kanryu-sama also had never loved someone that much before."

    I decided not to remark on the definition of love and asked him about the will instead.

    "How many people knew about the will and about Aoshi being the sole heir?"

    "Everyone." He said.  "Kanryu-sama didn't keep it a secret.  He made it clear to all of the children he fathered that he did not intend on including them in his will and the heir had already been decided.  Some of the mothers were very...aggressive."

    "McPike being one of them.  I understand they petitioned quite regularly."

    "I suppose.  I don't know much about who filed what papers."

    "Do you know where Ian is right now?"

    He shook his head.  He studied me for a moment then said, "You don't believe he did it."

    "An intuition, that's all.  I've never been wrong about a person's sincerity.  He loved Aoshi.  I dare say as much as, if not, more than Kanryu did."

    He seemed to be offended by my remark but didn't say it.

    "Money changes people's hearts," he said.  "And Aoshi didn't love him."

    I shrugged.  "Probably not in the way you think.  Do you have a theory why Aoshi's first tattoo was removed?"

    He was quiet for awhile.

    "Or why was the second one left for me to identify?"

    "Aoshi wanted to be with you," he said finally, then slowly stood up.  "I think Aoshi might have loved you and he had refused love from Ian and Kanryu-sama."

    I was immersed in my own thoughts to let Nakamura's words sink in.  By the time it did, he was already at the door.

    "I must go," he said.  "It was already difficult for me to come."

    I wasn't sure if he meant it in the accusatory sense, that I was the element that made the decision for Ian to go through with the murder.  Or if he meant he had placed himself in danger by coming to speak to me.  I didn't ask.

    "How can I contact you if I should have any more questions?"

    He shook his head.  "I can't help you anymore than this."

    I nodded.  "I understand."

    "Aoshi's a good boy.  He had a hard life and so little love.  He didn't deserve to die like this," he said.  "All I ask of you is to kill all of the bastards who did this to him."

    He opened the door and left.  His venomous last words resonated in my head for a few moments.  It stirred emotions that I didn't think I had and it troubled me.  Even looking at the pieces laid before me, I didn't want to accept the picture it formed.  I called Okita and told him about Nakamura and what he had said.

    "All pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit," he said.  I heard papers being turned and crinkled in the background.  "McPike's paperwork came into Ishimaru's desk the day after Kanryu died, and the last day Aoshi was seen alive by the house servants."

    "Pieces can be trimmed to fit into the puzzle."

    "It can be, but there's something else," he said.  "I received a reports from Interpol a few hours ago.  Three of Kanryu's bastard sons in Europe had been murdered.  One in Germany, two in France over the course of six days.  It seemed to be the same shooter and the same gun.  Interpol said they'll complete a ballistics and confirm the match.  All three of them had filed to get a piece of the inheritance.  I suspect there would be more when we start to compare names against the homicide register around the world."

    "You think Kiros' been picking them off?"

    "It certainly made sense.  Kiros didn't look like the kind that like to share.  He has the resources now, to order the assassinations quite easily."

    "I think we have enough to warrant Ishimaru to give us the names of all of the petitions for the estate.  If anything, it'd be easy for us to build a case against the lawyer also.  Kiros got the names and locations of his half brothers or sisters from someone who has direct access to the petitions."

    "I'll gather up as much paperwork as I can from my end.  Come down to my office and we'll see what we have before pouncing on Ishimaru."

    "Give me a couple of hours," I said.  "There's someone I need see."

    "Certainly," he said.  "Joe's in Brazil on uhh...an assignment."

    He gave me Joe's hotel information and hung up.  I called Joe's room.  He wasn't there.  I left him a message on the hotel voice mail and took a cab to Yamagawa station.

    "What's this?" Okita said when I dumped an armful of manila folders and envelopes on his desk.

    "Aoshi's crime scene photos, coroner reports and follow-up reports."

    "Why are we working backwards?" He said and stacked the untidy pile to the side. 

    "We are working both ends.  You work your section and I work mine," I said and sat down.  "There's more to the homicide than the neat little package we are given."

    He frowned.  "It sounds like to me that you're defending Von Erich for some reason, although you believed Nakamura's story."

    "I wouldn't call it a defense.  He just didn't fit the profile.  Homicides are common in Kanryu's world.  However, torturing a victim  for a prolonged period of time prior to the execution is quite extraordinary.  It's much easier for someone to pull a trigger than slice off their victim's skin over the course of few days."

    "I also understand when the killer-victim shared an intimate history, the killer tend to mutilate the victim."

    "On the subconscious level of de-humanizing the victim.  The more intimate their relationship, the higher level of the betrayal, so to speak.  The victim’s face was usually severely damaged.  Granted, Aoshi’s head did not have much facial features to speak of.  The skull did not have any breaks or fractures.  The first line cut between the killer and victim, if the motive's personal,  would be mutilation of the face.  A way for the killer to side-step his recollection of who the victim was to him.  The only stress fracture was on the jaws when the towel was forced down the victim's throat.  The first cut started in the back.  The killer faced away from the victim."

    "If what Nakamura said was true, about Aoshi wanting to be with you and rejected Von Erich, then it would make sense for him to leave the last tattoo for you to recognize."

    "If he wanted to leave me the calling card, he would have cut the one on the thigh, not on Aoshi's back," I said.  "Never mind this for now.  Do you have the profiles on the three that were off'ed in Europe? Any suspects or witnesses?"

    Okita shook his head and pushed a folder toward me.  "Everything's preliminary now.  I've sent in for a request on their background and bio and I don't think they will be in at least until next week."

    I opened the folder.  In it was a pile of faxes from Scotland Yard.

    "The only reason why they even knew there's a connection was that a former colleague of mine worked there and he knew I was handling the Kanryu case.  He knew at least two of them were Kanryu's illegit sons.  Couldn't be helped, they bragged about it."

    "All of them were shot in the head by single 5.56 mm rounds and by the point of impact, the shooter's estimated to be 2000 meters away," I said and whistled.  "I'm impressed.  Whoever it is, hired themselves a very good one."

    "You're not suppose to be impressed," Okita said, a bit annoyed.  "He's going to kill off the rest of the leads we have if he's not caught soon."

    "It's out of our hands," I said and closed the folder.  "He's doing his work in Europe.  All we can do is wait for Interpol to catch him.  We can squeeze Ishimaru for the names and set up surveillance on the potential victims and watch for the shooter to turn up.  The shooter's the key to all of this."

    "You think this is Von Erich's work?"

    I shrugged.  "Could be.  He certainly would be good enough to pull this off.  If he's motivated by money as Nakamura said he was, then this kind of jobs would be extra change in the pocket for him."

    Okita nodded.

    "Another thing we will need right now is phone records and phone taps," I said and fished out the worn piece of paper Nakamura gave me.  "And possibly intercept the emails sent from Kanryu's estate."

    "It will be very difficult to convince the higher-ups to agree to this."

    "Turn on your sunny charm when you hand them the affidavit.  No one can refuse your perky smile."

    Okita gave me that smile and his extended middle finger.  

      I took a day off from work to study Aoshi’s coroner report and photos without interruption. I spent nine hours on it and went to bed without learning anything new.  That night I dreamt about Aoshi and although I couldn't recall what had happened in the dream, I woke up furious with him.   Then Joe came over.  

    "Good God," I said when I saw him.  He wore a gray button-up shirt with a pewter bolo tie in the shape of the bull’s head.  A fitted leather pants and steel-toed leather boots completed his outfit.  “Did you kill a cow while you were in Brazil?”

   He told me to fuck off and walked into the kitchen and helped himself to a glass of whiskey.  When he walked, the leather made sounds that reminded me of car tired being braked too abruptly.

   “Okita told me you were out on an assignment,” I said.

    “I am,” he said and emerged from the kitchen carrying his glass.  He sat down on the sofa across from me.“  I came back today to do some courier service for my client.  I’ve got a couple of more weeks, maybe a month, on this job.  My client’s made a lot of mess for me to clean up.  What do you need?”

    “I’m not sure,” I began.  Then I told him what had transpired in the past week.  He laughed when I told him about Kiros.

    “I don’t know much about the McPikes and I’ve been out of the country too long to know how he’s fitting in.  If he is really giving up the gray areas, then I’ll give him another month before the Yakuza or a more aggressive fruit of Kanyu’s loins take him out and move in.  Hell, even I am tempted to do it after hearing how easy Kiros is.  What did you say about his mother?”

    “She looked like she might be able to kick my ass,” I said.  I nodded at the pile of folders I had stacked on the coffee table.   “It’s hard to imagine her charming the pants off Kanryu at one time.”

    Joe put down his glass and flipped through one of the folders marked “McPike”. 

    “It sounds like to me that she’s the only one who had the motive and the means to put out the hit.  However, I also think you are right about Von Erich.  He’s never been motivated by money or power.  I do believe he would be motivated by either hate or love,” he said.  “But I don’t think you called me so I can agree with you.”

    “Maybe I simply missed the sound of your scratchy voice.”

     He nodded.  “I thought so, you sweet man.  Must be the same syrupy personality that made Okita decide to leave you by the curb while he spoke to Ishikawa.”

    “He said I’d scare Ishikawa both intentionally and unintentionally if I went.”

    “You do that a lot,” he said and raised his glass and gave me a toast.  “Scaring people.”

     He took a long drink that nearly drained the glass.  He turned over one surveillance photo and frowned slightly when it revealed Kiros’ mother. 

    “You’re right,” he said.  “She’ll kill you.”

    He closed that folder and opened up the one underneath.  It was Aoshi’s coroner’s report.  His lips were drawn into a humorless smile as he flipped through the photos.  He paused on the picture that had the close-up of the wound on Aoshi’s back.

    He said “Jesus Christ” softly under his breath.

   “You think Von Erich could be capable of that?” I asked.

   He looked at the picture some more and shrugged.

   “He’s not a sadist, if that’s what you are asking.  But if it involves someone whom he had raised and come to love, then everything changes.  The most unlikely people do the most unlikely things when their hearts' broken.”

   “What about the killings in Europe?”

    “That’s more of his style.  He usually does his job from long distance.  It’s actually somewhat of a rarity for him to do any killing.  His subordinates did most of the work.”

     He picked up the copies of faxes that detailed the assassinations in Europe.  A grin appeared.

    “Ah, now I am kind of certain it’s him,” he said.  “It’s one of his signatures, 5.56 mm NATO rounds.  You don’t have many out there that favored an M-16 as a sniper weapon.  Von Erich exclusively used it and he might be the only human being in the world that can achieve the kind of accuracy he had with it.  M-16’s designed to kick out many rounds with distant trajectory but it’s like pissing in the wind trying to hit 100 percent after 1000 meters.  The bullet kind of go where it wants to go after that.  Von Erich never embraced the lighter, faster and more accurate toys.  Part of his charm."

    I looked at the picture with the close up of Aoshi's back that Joe had not tucked back completely into the folder.  What remained of the flesh had serrated appearance to them, with the starting point where the knife entered the flesh deeply.  Whoever did the job, did it poorly.  The knife had also cut into the spine and shoulder blades.  

    "No, I don't think he did this to Aoshi," I said and pulled the photo out to look at it closer.  "At least, he didn't do this to him personally."

    "Huh?"

    "The person who carved on the body's left handed," I said.  "The point of entry for each knife wound bore to the left."

    I put down the photo to let Joe look at it.  

    "See how deep the cut slanted toward the left a little? That's where the cut begins.  The blade of the knife fillets closer to the surface of the skin as it swept toward the right."

    "How do you know if Von Erich's right handed?"

    "He carried his gun under his left arm," I said.  

    "So this proved that he didn't dirty his own hands.  He could have ordered this to be done."

    I shrugged.  "The death would have no meaning and it would resolve nothing for Von Erich.  Human psychology's standard, even if you are fucked up."

    He made a face and drank the last slip of whiskey left in his glass.

    "The only theory I have left is Von Erich handed Aoshi over to McPike for a price.  He had nothing to lose, if Aoshi rejected him.  McPike did this to Aoshi over some personal issues you may not be aware of.  Most likely, McPike knew why Aoshi got his first tattoo and that meant something to him.  The second one, not that many people knew about."

    "Kiros did know about Aoshi and I."

    "Maybe Kiros want to fuck with you."

    I smiled.  "I hope so."

9 November 2001  ~ Narcissus